Customer Reviews

70's Party Classics Killers

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

It all started so innocently. I purchased this CD on a lark in mid 1998.

Subsequently, I put on this CD at high volume to torture my then-coworkers. Then it became a running joke. We'd take any opportunity, any pretext at all, to put it on. It had to be played at least once every day for "good luck." We'd force each other to listen to it. We'd have little contests to see who was man enough to listen to it over and over and still silently sit there programming away, not complaining. Sometimes we'd sing along to enhance the effect. In short: we broke people. It was like a Vietnamese prison camp in stereo.

It was a joke. But then a very strange thing happened-- as I listened to the CD over and over, I BEGAN TO LIKE IT. I mean really like it! I began to listen to it at home on my own time. "There's something about this music", I thought, as I listened to it for the 543rd time. "Maybe it's so bad, it has actually wrapped all the way around and it's.. good again?", I thought. I played the album for my wife. At that point I was hooked. I knew all the words to "Having my Baby", and.. I liked it!

People need reminders like this when older people start hyping up about how "better" their music was back in their day...

Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Ole Oak Tree - Tony Orlando. I could think of a thousand other songs to put on this list before this one... "Knock Three Times" being one of them, and all New Yorkers know Tony very well from Labor Day telethons... This one also got a lot of play on the radio when the Iran hostage thing happened in '79.

The Night Chicago Died - The synth beginning, the goofy lyrics.. I can hear the plaidness. Billy, Don't Be a Hero - Vietnam era reference, the whistles and drums are a little annoying...

(You're) Having My Baby, Paul Anka. The man who co-wrote "My Way" wrote this ode to men who wanted their women barefoot, pregnant and grateful to the hubby. Should've stopped writing after 1960.... one of the all-time worst.

Playground in My Mind- the kids are annoying!! Think this one was on Mike Douglas or Merv Griffin every week...

Feelings - Morris Albert. The "Freebird" of lounge songs.. Want to turn a karaoke bar violent? Sing this one...ties with Sometimes When We Touch.

Candy Man - Sammy Davis, Jr. From "Willy Wonka". Where were the Oompa Loompas, babe? koo koo ka-choo... not the rat packer's finest moment...

But the last 4 are undeniably gloriously bad...
Afternoon Delight. Will Ferrell brought this one back for "Anchorman". The song is fabulously annoying.

Torn Between Two Lovers - goes with "Feelings" and "Sometimes When We Touch". Gloriously sappy ballads..

Escape (The Piña Colada Song)... the song will never go away. Kids who watch "Shrek" even know this one now...

Muskrat Love.. America did this one, C&T covered it with synth noises... kids love it anyway.

Overall, a commendable job of showing the best of the bad in the 70s and one that warrants sequels from different eras.

But it was definitely missing a few...*MacArthur Park (this is one that was sorely missing as well as the other asterisked ones), *I've Never Been To Me, Lovin' You,Sugar Shack, *In the Year 2525, *Honey (Bobby Goldsboro), *Him (by the Pina Colada guy), Shannon, Wildfire, Edmund Fitzgerald, Alone Again (Naturally), Seasons in the Sun, You Light Up My Life, Into the Night (Benny Mardones), Kisses For Me, Saturday Night (bay city rollers), theme from Ice Castles, The Morning After, Run Joey Run, Timothy, Convoy, Travolta's "Let Her In", 98.6, You Take My Breath Away, All By Myself, Don't Give Up On Us Baby, *Watchin Scotty Grow, Sylvia's Mother, Kiss You All Over, Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing... and that's the short list...

There's enough from the other eras to make "gloriously bad" compilations...Ballad of the Green Berets, Achy Breaky, Macarena, Britney's "My Perogative", We Built This City, Ice Ice Baby,Meat Loaf "I Would Do Anything for Love", Party All The Time, Ode To Billy Joe, Freebird/Baby I Love Your Way, Sunglasses at Night, Rico Suave, She Bangs,etc...

This one will be a favorite by old and young alike and a guilty pleasure, and I'd also recommend tracking down a velvet painting, some plaid bellbottoms, along with some late-60s-early 70s French and Italian instrumental and Moog music as well as "Players Pimps and Private Eyes".

The first thing to remember about these songs is that every single one of them were major hits that charted high and stuck around a long time. Love 'em or hate 'em, if you're old enough to remember the 70's, most of these songs are probably forever burned into your brain cells.

I disagree with the reviewer about his take on older versus newer music versus older music and how he uses this against lovers of the classics. The seventies were a great decade for music (movies too), it just really sucked to not have a FM receiver in your car.

This is an awesome collection of cheesy 70's AM pop! All original artists and versions too!

The songs on this CD are why the 70's saw the birth of album oriented radio a.k.a. AOR. Commercial radio was dreadful. It amazes me reading the reviews how many people missed the cynicism of this project. Maybe they didn't notice the guy hanging himself on the cover. One word of warning if you do play this at a party all the people you wanted to leave will stay and all the party people will break your door down trying to flee.

I'm pleased to see that Rhino is finally tapping into the vast market of fans of so-bad-it's-good music. This CD is a welcome addition to my bad music collection, which currently includes two albums by Bobby Goldsboro, Golden Throats, the best of Shatner and Nimoy, an album by Yanni and one by Michael Bolton (the lengths I'll go to!). Unfortunately, not all the songs here are bad enough to suit my (admittedly discriminating) tastes. A really bad song should be one that if you heard it on the radio from another room you would RUN as fast as you could to turn it off. Some of these songs make the cut, others don't. Here is my ranking, from low (not bad enough to suit me) to high (really awful):

Escape (The Pina Colada Song): Yes, it sucks, but it's actually kind of tuneful if you tune out the words. I sometimes sing this at karaoke bars, and you'd be surprised how many people like it.

Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree: More boring than bad.

The Night Chicago Died: Also more boring than bad.

Billy, Don't Be A Hero: Again, more boring than bad, with a bit of cheesiness thrown in.

The Candy Man: Starting to get on my nerves...

Afternoon Delight: Really horrible, but I've heard it so many times I think I've built up an immunity to it.

Muskrat Love: Another one that is tolerable if I completely ignore the words.

Feelings: Now we're talking. Something about Morris Albert's extreme vibrato on "Fee-ee-ee-lings" hits my gag reflex pretty hard.

Sometimes When We Touch: Dan Hill, the shame of Canada (I'm Canadian BTW) single-handedly killed the sensitive-guy singer/songwriter genre with this song.

Playground In My Mind: You know a song with a little kid singing is going to be bad, and this one doesn't disappoint.

(You're) Having My Baby: This is starting to get hard-core. The line about "The seed inside you baby, do you feel it growin'?" puts Paul Anka at the pinnacle of bad-music excellence.

Torn Between Two Lovers: This sensitive ballad about a woman who cheats on her boyfriend/husband is by far the worst song on the album. How bad is it? It's so bad it makes me want to rip my ears off and never hear anything again as long as I live. In other words, it's perfect! I especially love the line "There's just this empty place inside of me that only he can fill." Wow. Another fave is "I couldn't really blame you if you turned and walked away / But with everything I feel inside, I'm asking you to stay". Try telling your girlfriend that when she catches you with another woman, and see how far that gets you.

I would love to see more albums along these lines. The review by dvdtrkr has a comprehensive list of candidate songs that I can't improve on (though I personally kind of like "MacArthur Park", go figure). In particular, I really want Charlene's "I've Never Been To Me" on a CD (it's up there with "Torn Between Two Lovers", easily). More, Rhino, more!

Click on the image near the top of the page and take a good look at it. The name of this is '70's Party Killers.' It is not for you to play at a party. It will kill your party. That's why it's called '70's Party Killers.' Buy it if you like these songs or because you love to hate these songs, but don't buy it thinking it's a party album. Duh.

I grew up in the 70s and if anyone had tried playing any of these songs for a party they'd have gotten stomped to death.
Maybe gaggles of pimply fat girls liked and played these songs, after all they did sell enough copies to become hits, but no one who even thought about being cool would even tolerate these coming on the radio.
Look elsewhere.

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If you and I set out to make a "worst of the 70's album," we would have a hard time matching wits with the geniuses that put this one together.

Of the thousands of 70's compilations I have examined, this is the worst. This album deserves no stars.

scottie

viva la music great artists dont make recording like this any more it reminds me of getting laid in high school viva la music

The title says it all. This CD does pull out all the stops in the schlock and saccharine department. It would get even less if they included 'I've Never Been to Me' by Charlene, one of the worst songs of all time. I guess a one star review for this collection is a thumbs up, right? P.S. I would NEVER own this CD, but I've heard all the songs here, which is more than enough.